Long-continued drought had marked this summer-time, and when in September no rain fell the papers had been full of acrimonious comments on the ways of water-companies. The water-company at fault was really no earthly controller, and the most intelligent body of men can not milk the clouds. But the British public is not happy without its grievance, and just now it was certainly enjoying itself immensely.

Wroxton had hitherto suffered less than other towns, but by the beginning of October the supply began to cause uneasiness. But the water-company had another spring up its sleeve, and, to quiet complaints, about the second week in the month it was drawn upon, and the intelligent public was deprived of its right to grumble.

The weather was hot and unseasonable, with the heat not of an invigorating sun, but of the closed and vitiated atmosphere of a packed room. Day after day a blanket of gray cloud covered the earth as with a lid, yet the rain came not. A windless, suffocating calm environed the earth; it was rank weather for man and beast. The perennial green of the great downs faded to an unwholesome yellow, like a carpet that is losing its colour from the sun, and the nights were dewless. The heavenly forces that temper the frosts of winter with a benigant sun and the heats of summer with the cool dews of night seemed to have been struck dead. Clouds overset the earth, but neither dispersed nor discharged. It was as if the vitality of the seasons had failed, as if the earth was abandoned to decay.

Jeannie was immune from the assaults of climate, and Miss Fortescue went out so seldom that she found no great disagreeableness in the stagnation of the air. But Colonel Raymond felt it acutely, and said it was like waiting for the rains in India. Miss Clara Clifford could no more write poetry than she could play the mandolin, and Miss Phoebe would have as soon thought of playing the mandolin as of embarking on an epic. But the Colonel gave up the brisk walks while such dispiriting weather lasted, and though Mrs. Raymond dwindled and paled, she found her consolation in seeing the children play hide-and-seek among the gooseberry bushes.

Ten days after the new spring had been drawn upon certain ill-defined cases of illness began to appear in the town. For the most part they were among children, and the doctors for a day or two considered them as only a natural outcome of this long-continued sultriness and inclement air. But they were not wholly at their ease about it, and as the cases increased day by day it was no longer possible to exclude the idea that this was an epidemic. By this time some of the first cases, which were now five or six days old, began to look grave, and before the week was out it was generally known that typhoid had appeared in many houses.

Several of Jeannie’s various classes were ill with the hitherto unspecified fever, and she had been visiting them daily at their homes. She was up in the nursery making herself agreeable to the baby one morning when Miss Fortescue came in, looking grave.

“Jeannie, some of your girls have been ill, have they not?” she asked.

“Yes, four or five of them and several of the boys. I am just going out to see them.”

“Leave the child,” said Miss Fortescue, “and come.”

Jeannie followed her, and a howl followed Jeannie.

“What is it, Aunt Em?” she asked, when they were outside.

“It is typhoid,” said Miss Fortescue.

Jeannie dropped her eyes for a moment, and then looked up.

“Is it infectious?” she asked; “I mean, can I carry it?”

“I don’t know,” said Miss Fortescue. “Jeannie, what is the matter with you?”

Jeannie had sat down on a chair in the landing, and was looking in front of her with wide, unseeing eyes.

“I may have given it to the baby,” she said.

“Jeannie, don’t be foolish,” said Miss Fortescue. “Oh, my dear, be sensible. I have already written to Dr. Maitland saying that you had been with probable typhoid cases, and asking what precautions one ought to take. I thought it probable that you would be uneasy about the baby, so I also asked whether it was possible that you had carried infection. That was about half an hour ago; I expect the answer every moment.”

“Oh, Aunt Em,” said Jeannie, coming close to her, “you think it is all right, don’t you? You don’t think I have been stupid or incautious?”

“I think you are being very stupid now,” said Aunt Em. “Ah, here is Pool.”

The butler came upstairs and handed Miss Fortescue a note; she glanced at it quickly.

“Such a risk of carrying typhoid as the one you mention is inconceivable,” she read, “and a baby of a few months old having it at all is unknown to the medical profession.”

She passed the note to Jeannie, who glanced at it.

“Oh, thank God, thank God!” she cried. “Aunt Em, I am going to see Dr. Maitland at once.”

“The Avesham nerves,” sighed Miss Fortescue. “Surely the note is clear enough.”

“Yes, it is not that,” said Jeannie; “but if this increases they will be short of hands. I heard that all the nurses in the hospital were working double time. I am going to say that I wish to help in any way that he will allow me.”

Miss Fortescue looked at her a moment, and neither surprise nor criticism was in her eye.

“We will go together,” she said; “let us go at once.”

“Why should you come?” asked Jeannie.

“Because I wish to. I know something about nursing, though I have never nursed typhoid, which is more than you do, Jeannie.”

Jeannie looked surprised.

“I didn’t know—” she began.

“You know very little about me, dear,” said Miss Fortescue, “and that’s a fact. Go and get on your hat. I suppose I ought to forbid you to visit or help in any way, even forbid you suggesting it. But there are certain risks on certain occasions which every one is bound to run. Whether the risk in your case is too great to be allowed I do not know. That is what we are going to Dr. Maitland to find out. I remember only that people who are fortunate enough to be as old as I are practically immune. I hear there are fifty fresh cases this morning.”

They found that Dr. Maitland was out and up at the hospital, where they followed him. After they had waited for a few minutes in a bare, dismal room, of which the principal furniture was a weighing-machine, a stethoscope, and a bottle labelled “poison,” he came in, looking grave, florid, and anxious.

“Yes, it is typhoid beyond a doubt,” he said, “and epidemic. Please sit down. Personally I am disposed to think it may be traced to the water-supply of the town, which has come since the drought was so bad from an open spring in the Gresham fields. I am making a bacteriological examination of it. Till that is settled I should advise you not to drink it, or even use it for washing, except after boiling.”

“Are you very short of nurses?” asked Miss Fortescue.

“Yes, I am at my wit’s end to know what to do. My wife has volunteered to help, and, I hear, two other ladies. There are some coming from London and Shrewsbury to-day, but we have fifty fresh cases reported this morning, and there will be certainly more I have not yet heard of.”

“Miss Avesham and I have come to offer our help,” said Miss Fortescue. “I have been six months in a London hospital, and know something about it, though I have never nursed typhoid.”

“That is very kind of you,” said Dr. Maitland, “and I accept your offer most gladly. But it is right to tell you that you run some risk. As far as we can see, the disease is of the most malignant type. Several have died already, which is rare in the first week. In your case, Miss Fortescue, the risk is light, but for younger people it must not be disregarded. There is a risk.”

Miss Fortescue looked at Jeannie.

“I suppose many of the nurses are quite young,” said Jeannie.

“No doubt; but it is their profession.”

“Aunt Em, there is really no choice,” said Jeannie. “I am afraid I may not be of much use, Dr. Maitland, but please let me do what I can.”

Dr. Maitland was not given to gushing any more than Miss Fortescue.

“I will certainly do so,” he said. “But you must remember that the work is tiring and demands incessant watchfulness and patience, for typhoid, above all other diseases depends on nursing. Please remember what I told you about boiling and filtering water. If you cannot trust your servants, see it done yourselves. There is no precaution half so necessary.”

“And the baby?” asked Jeannie. “Is it quite safe that it should remain here?”

Dr. Maitland had a merry eye.

“Perfectly,” he said. “But you will probably not think so. If you are in any way likely to worry about it, send it away at once. I can not have my nurses thinking about any thing but their patients. That is all, I think. If you will be here again by half past two I will have arranged about your duties.”

He shook hands with them, and went hurriedly back to his work. Miss Fortescue and Jeannie came out again into the hot, drowsy atmosphere, and walked a little way in silence.

“Think it over, Jeannie,” said the other at length. “I quite understand that you are not frightened for yourself, and I never expected you would be. But you have to consider your duty toward your brother and other people who are fond of you. Me, for instance,” she added, with an unusual burst of emotion.

“There is no choice,” said Jeannie. “I must help if I can, and I am sure you see that. But what about the baby? Shall we send it away? No doubt it is stupid of me, but I think I should be happier if it was not here.”

“It shall go this afternoon,” said Miss Fortescue. “We will telegraph to Jack Collingwood.”

“Don’t alarm him,” said Jeannie, and stopped abruptly.

Miss Fortescue devoted several seconds to the consideration of this remark, and then smiled on the side of her mouth away from Jeannie.

“How could he be alarmed?” she asked. “I shall say, of course, what Dr. Maitland said, that typhoid is unknown in babies.”

“Yes, that will be all right,” said Jeannie, rather absently. “But don’t make the outbreak too serious.”

And her enigmatic aunt smiled again.

Arthur had got in to lunch when they got back. He, too, had heard the news about the typhoid.

“They told me you had both gone to the hospital,” he said. “What do they say there? Is it very serious?”

“Yes,” said Miss Fortescue. “The baby goes to Jack Collingwood this afternoon. Not that there is the least risk, but Jeannie is foolish. She and I are going to help in nursing.”

He had not expected anything else, for he knew Jeannie. Aveshams were not demonstrative, and he only looked at her quietly a moment.

“I supposed you would,” he said. “I suppose it is right. Is there much risk?”

“Ordinary risk,” said Jeannie. “Dr. Maitland allowed it.”

“Yes, one wants to be of some use in such cases,” said Arthur. “I hear the state of things in the lower part of the town is awful. The brewery stops working to-day; there are over twenty men down with it. I wonder if I could help?”

“No, Arthur, you mustn’t,” said Jeannie, quickly. “I wish you would go away. Go up to Mr. Collingwood’s with the baby for a week or two. Dr. Maitland said that for younger people the risk was greater.”

“Then we will ask him whether a man of twenty-three is much more liable to infection than a girl of twenty-four,” he said. “It sounds highly probable. Let’s come in to lunch. I am famished.”

Miss Fortescue went upstairs to tell nurse to pack and be ready to start in the afternoon, and write a telegram to Jack Collingwood; and having written it she paused for a moment, looking out of her window.

“It is a fine breed,” she said, “and it is not in my heart to stop either of them. They will walk into the wards and feverful houses as if they were going out to tea.”

Directly after lunch the two women turned out their wardrobes to find some thin washing stuff suitable for their dresses. Jeannie could only lay her hands on a pale-blue cotton, and though she was still in deep mourning she put it on without question. As Miss Fortescue had said, neither she nor Arthur regarded any possible risk for themselves any more than they would have reckoned on the danger of a ceiling falling on them as they sat at dinner. Personal fear was unknown to them, though they both heartily wished the other would stop securely at home or go with the baby. The three went up together to the hospital. Dr. Maitland was there, and came to them at once, looking a little less florid, and a little graver.

“Twenty more cases,” he said, “and two have died in hospital in the last three hours, Miss Fortescue. Ah, how do you do, Mr. Avesham? What can I do for you? I hope you haven’t come to get your temperature taken?”

Arthur laughed.

“No, not yet,” he said; “I only came with my aunt and sister to see if you could find anything for me to do.”

“Certainly I can, and any one else also who comes. Start with Cowley Street this afternoon—all that district is the worst—and see that all the drinking-water in the houses is boiled. It is no use giving them advice. See the pot on the fire. Don’t frighten them; encourage them, and tell them they are perfectly safe if they will do what you tell them. Go first to the dispensary here, and say I sent you, and tell the man to give you plenty of bicarbonate of mercury, and instruct you how it is to be used. Distribute it at the houses you visit, and show them how to use it. Be sure they don’t put it into their drinking-water. By the way, have you a room to spare?”

“Yes; at your disposal.”

“You see, I take you at your word when you offer to help,” said Dr. Maitland. “Two friends of mine are coming from Guy’s to assist me, but I can’t put them both up. May I send one on to you?”

“By all means,” said Arthur.

“Thank you very much,” said he. “There is no time nor need, I think, to tell you how grateful I feel for your kindness. By the way, Mr. Avesham, can you use a clinical thermometer? No? That’s bad. When you go to the dispensary tell them to give you one, and take your own temperature and the dispensary man’s temperature several times, under the tongue. Get a thirty-second thermometer, and your temperature is 97·6°. Take it until it is right. Then you know how to use one. In the houses you visit, if you see a man, woman, or child ill, insist on taking their temperature. If the thermometer registers as much as half a degree over 99 take their names and addresses and tell me when you come back. Also, after taking each temperature, if there is any fever, dip the thermometer into a solution of the mercury and wipe it carefully. Good-bye, and many thanks. The dispensary is the second door on the right.”

As soon as he was gone Dr. Maitland turned to the others.

“A fine absence of nervousness,” he said; “he looked as if he was going to pay a call. And I don’t see any nervousness here, either. Miss Fortescue, I think you said you knew something about nursing, so I have put you with Nurse James in charge of the first ward. In a day or two she will have put you in the way of your work, and then probably I shall ask you to look after certain houses, or take charge of patients by yourself. Miss Avesham also is under her in the same ward. You have about forty cases, some very serious. Please put yourselves entirely in her hands: she is admirable. There is no need to tell you that on your care and watchfulness many lives depend. You will both have day nursing only. This way, please.”